Page 57 of Courtroom Drama
He breaks our gaze, looks to the window. “Yeah, maybe,” he says, then moves his attention back to me. “But honestly, there was opportunity back then. We were together almost every day. I was always afraid you wouldn’t feel the same and it would end our friendship. If things didn’t work out, we wouldn’t be able to go back.”
My lips part, and a dull ache invades my chest. He’s offered far more than he’s usually willing to say. And I’m sure he realizes the irony of his words. Our friendshipdidend, and we neverwereable to go back, just not because of our mounting interest in each other.
It suddenly feels incredibly intimate, being in his room, right next to his slept-in bed. I imagine his bare, inked skin pressed into those stark white sheets. Innocently sneaking around is one thing, but falling for this man—again—when it took me so long to get over him the first time is another charge entirely.
“Right, well, should we get on with our debauchery then?” I say. I have to get out of this room.
Damon nods, though makes no motion toward the door. I see his internal struggle—say more or relent. It’s a constant battle between us and within ourselves, of how hard to push backward into the particulars of our past. One too forceful press and we may lose whatever small ground we’ve gained.
Eventually, he chooses the door. He listens for a moment and, when satisfied, opens it in that silent way he has perfected. I don’t even hesitate in following. I can’t seem to stop myself, no matter the potential consequences.
Damon pokes his head into the hallway. He motions for me to join him, and we step out of his room, quickly pressing against Cam’s door. Damon knocks three times, so lightly I can’t imagine Cam hearing it. But the door swings open almost immediately, as if Cam has been watching out the peephole.
We file in silently, and Cam shuts his own door with precision. “Glad you guys came,” he says.
Damon and I evaluate his room. We know so little about one another despite spending eight straight days with the other jurors. A view into someone’s room, where they sleep, is a wealth of information. Cam’s bed is perfectly made—corners tucked and comforter smoothed. None of his personal items are strewn about, and at first glance one might assume this room has been turned down and is ready for a new occupant. I wasn’t expecting him to be so orderly.
“What’d you want to show us?” Damon asks.
Cam grins—this wide, secretive smile that stretches his whole face. We watch as he heads to the closet, retrieves the same black backpack I saw him leave his room with the other night, and sets it on the bed. He grins at us again, then dumps its many contents onto the brushstroke-patterned bedspread.
My mouth drops open.
Before us, splayed across the bed in a messy pile, is a collection of practically every item banned from the jury: two cell phones, a printedmagazine with Margot’s face on it, a small AM/FM radio, a plastic baggie filled with brownies that look a lot like the ones from the buffet, a half-empty bottle of vodka, and a box of Trojan BareSkin condoms. It’s likeOrange Is the New Blackin here with all this poorly hidden contraband.
Damon picks up what looks to be a prescription bottle and observes it.
“Gummies. You want one?” Cam asks, still grinning proudly.
Damon tilts the bottle toward me in question. I shake my head.
“Where did you get all this?” I ask, staring at the pile of goods but too afraid to touch any of it. I envision Bailiff George dusting the pile with fingerprint powder once it’s inevitably seized.
I expect some harrowing tale of how he wrapped things in plastic and swallowed them or shoved them into unmentionable orifices, or a complex bribery system with the guards. He shrugs. “Nobody checked my backpack.”
“Seriously?” I say, feeling a bit disappointed there isn’t a more dramatic story behind the pile of items on the bed.
“Figured it was time to share the wealth.” Cam plops down on the bed and opens the plastic baggie, removes a brownie, and takes a bite.
I sit on the corner of the bed. “So, what do you know? What’s the word on the street about the case? About Margot?”
Damon sits beside me, hooking his knee atop the bed to face both me and Cam. “Really?” he says.
I know. It’s completely hypocritical of me to ask when I’ve been preaching adherence to the rules. I know I’m putting the case itself—and perhaps Margot—at even greater risk. But I have to know what the media is putting out about her. If they are painting her in a favorable light.
“It’s not good,” Cam says, handing me the magazine. “This one I swiped from the lobby. Seems they didn’t think to temporarily hold off on setting out their weekly magazines.”
I hesitate for a brief moment but then, intrigue winning over, grab the magazine. I look at the date. It released today.
Margot’s face takes up most of the cover with five words scrawled across it: “Who Is the Malibu Menace?”To the side, the subhead thatmakes my stomach sink: “Scorned by Joe’s multiple affairs, reading books on women who poison, and a secret disappearance at age sixteen.”
I think back to Margot’s father’s testimony just a few days ago, as I have often. With all the case’s revelations thus far, his is still the one that nags at me most. Where was Margot during that week when she was sixteen? What happened to her over those seven days? I don’t know why exactly, but I can’t help but believe whatever happened back then put her on the trajectory that led us all here. I was the same age, after all, when the defining moment of my life happened. Aren’t we all just products of our formative years? Margot’s no exception.
I flip to the article, which shows more pictures of Margot, Joe, and their kids—a sad scrapbook of what used to be. Skimming the article, I find an anonymous source from the courtroom quoted, referencing Margot as“unapologetic and spiteful”during the trial and that “the jury does not seem to connect with her.”
Really?
It’s a far stretch, all of it. How are we meant to “connect,” exactly, when sitting silently in a courtroom?
